Printer sharing with a password?

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powdahound

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My roommates and I bought a printer for our room this year to share between the 3 of us and I would like to use my desktop as the print server. I have it all set up so I can print to it over the network just fine but I would like to set it up so only they can print to it (would prefer to have a password really). Is there any way to do this? I tried setting up a local 'print' user and allowing it access to print but when using another computer it never asks you for a login/password like it does if you are connecting to a network drive. Help? :)
 
When you share a printer there should be a tab labelled security. If there is an entry labelled everyone that means anybody can connect up and use it. When a computer connect it should authenticate as itself (ie as the logged on user on the remote machine).

As far as I'm aware if you only allow the "Print" user it will ask for a password when somebody tries to connect.

Hope it makes sense ;)
 
Ya I took out the everyone user so that it isn't for everyone but then it wont let me print to it. It never prompts me for a login. :(
 
you have to then add the users you want to allow to print if you remove the group Everyone
 
I did that... I added a 'print' user (named 'print') but it never asks for the password when you're connecting from a remote machine.
 
doesn't work that way, you have to allow or restrict it on a per user basis. If you have added a user Print, then only that user will be able to print. NT does access by user, not by share.
 
Yes but where does the print user enter their password on their computer? That's the only thing I'm still confused about. ;)
 
they don't, when a user accesses a network, they are verified by their user name. So the user Print of the remote computer would be able to print to the server, noone else. There is no UserA getting prompted for a username/password and being able to enter the Print username/password.
 
oh well that's how it can work for network drives so i figured that's how it would work for printers too. so how do i let a remote user access it if they can't log in as a certain account? am i able to add their account on their computer to the permissions?
 
just add the user of the account you want to add to the server PC.
 
But the accounts aren't on my local computer... they're on the network. When i click 'locations' in the security add dialog the only location i have is the one I'm on. :(
 
right, on your local PC, add a user account of the remote computer's user that you want to allow printing to. Then after they are a user on your PC, you can add them to the allowed user list on the printer share.
 
So I set up a new user account locally on my computer that has the same name as their username on their computer? That doesn't seem very secure... seems like anybody could just set up an account with that name on their computer and then print to my printer.
 
only if they are connected to your LAN.
 
This is going to be on a college network with lots of people. So basically anybody could set up an account with the same name as one of the people I allow and get in?
 
If you are on a college network then I would suggest not sharing the printer.
 
I would still just like to know how to do this regardless of where I'm doing it. I don't think it should be a problem just because it's on a larger network...
 
Well, since you will be on a domain network, you can add the users in the security add box, user@domain or domain\user. This should allow you (as long as you add yourself in this format) and your roommates access to print to your printer from any location in the network. Personally I don't like the insecure nature of a such a large network.
 
I don't either but it's only a printer, and it's something we can always just turn off. :)

Now in the "Locations" dialog on the security tab do you know how to get it to show more than just me? I have a crossover cable going to my laptop right now and it won't even see that...
 
When you right click your printer in Printer and Faxes, go over to the Security Tab, click on Add. Then you need to know the domain that your PC is connected to. Once you know the domain name, you add the user as their username on the domain and the domian name, eg, user j79zlr on a domain tweakxp; it would be j79zlr@tweakxp
 

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